Monitoring trends of volumetric water content in turfgrass rootzones with a soil moisture meter from 2014 to 2021

Abstract The POGO TurfPro is a hand‐held, portable device that utilizes coaxial impedance dielectric permittivity technology to measure soil volumetric water content (VWC; v:v%) and other variables in highly managed turfgrass rootzones. Since 2014, measurements obtained on this soil moisture meter platform have been captured digitally by Amazon Web Services, thereby providing an opportunity to evaluate sampling habits and usage trends by the turfgrass practitioner. From 2014 to 2021, the worldwide use of this soil moisture meter was evaluated among turfgrass practitioners and industry professionals. In 2014, the total number of global VWC sampling events were only 135, but in 2021, it had increased to >10,000,000. An exponential increase in soil sampling was observed from 135 in 2014 to nearly 4,000,000 in 2017, extending to >10,000,000 in 2021, and this represented a 29.25% annual average increase during 2017–2021. Soil sampling occurred consistently from January through December in 2016–2021, with >50% of global sampling activity occurring from May through September, and the top 3 months for monitoring soil VWC were June, July, and August. These observations of turfgrass practitioner use characteristics confirmed that portable hand‐held soil moisture sensor technology has become an accepted and heavily relied upon tool for monitoring soil VWC and therefore supporting sustainable turfgrass management practices.